NFL Thoughts, Tears and Trivia
It's been a long season.
This weekend featured a 49ers game that was notable to me in that it’s the first time in maybe six or seven years that I went into a game fairly sure the 49ers would not only lose, but get trounced. And indeed, they went into Buffalo and it was somehow worse than I’d expected - not only did they look lifeless and hapless in the blizzard, but Christian McCaffrey suffered a season-ending injury. For folks with no stake in the game (or those rooting for Buffalo), the game was tremendous and featured a Josh Allen to … Josh Allen touchdown.
But for the 49ers it just seems to continue the theme of the season - they’re not a BAD team. They just aren’t good. The statistics actually suggest they’re playing above average but not closing out games - and then in the last two weeks, they’ve gotten boatraced by the Packers and Bills. Via the 33rd team, this graphic truly says it all.
Those aren’t just any players. That’s a list of All-Pros, Pro Bowlers and everyone on here aside from Mason is a starter - and a very, very good one. (Mason is good too!)
In any event, they are 5-7, and it’s time to start planning for next season. There are some glass half-full things to take away from this. For one, the team has played so many more games than most of their competition by going so deep in the playoffs the last few years. The ability for the team to heal up a bit is massive. But another benefit I hadn’t considered until I read this article by Tim Kawakami is that they will benefit by NOT having to play a first place schedule next year. Remember that when teams play out of their division, they sometimes play the entire division - but for others they just play one team - and it’s the team that finished in the same spot they did the prior season. A healed up team, with potentially some new coaching, playing some teams that aren’t the cream of the crop in their division? Yeah, I like that for the 49ers.
So I’ve been poking around looking at the NFL Draft, and just reading about football in a more general sense, and uncovered a few gems. Here’s one I kind of can’t believe. Do you remember wide receiver Ricky Proehl? (Boy, I bet you didn’t see that question coming.) If you’re a football fan, the name is probably familiar. Somehow, Proehl played 17 years in the NFL, for six different teams. Looking at his profile on Pro Football Reference, he had a consistent career, if not ever remarkable. He was a very solid professional athlete, and good on him.
So why do I mention him? Because I somehow uncovered this
You have to dig a bit deeper in these details to find out what I’m talking about, but in 2001 and 2003, Proehl played in the Super Bowl, first for the St. Louis Rams and then for the Carolina Panthers. In both games he caught a TD in the waning moments of the game. And in BOTH games, Tom Brady negotiated a comeback win to defeat Proehl’s team. (Don’t cry for him, he won a ring with the Rams in 1999 and did just fine.)
That’s pretty crazy, right? I feel like there’s a great 30-for-30 or something similar with Proehl and Brady talking about this. One final capstone? 15 years after the Panthers lost to Brady and the Patriots, Brady and team beat the Los Angeles Rams (who yes, had since relocated again) in the Super Bowl. On that Rams team (albeit on the practice squad)? Austin Proehl, Ricky’s son.
Somewhere in the Proehl household, there’s a dartboard with Tom Brady’s face on it.
Hey, remember Josh Gordon? Otherwise known as Flash, he was an incredible wideout. His second season, he led the league in receiving yards, was All-Pro and a Pro Bowler and seemed like he was the absolute future at wideout. For the season, he averaged 117.6 yards per game he played. My word.
Unfortunately, drugs got in the way and his career sputtered out after suspensions (which might not happen in todays NFL, as I believe they were mostly for marijuana, though he publicly had issues with other substances as well).
What shocked me were two facts - one, as I write this, Gordon is still only 33 years old. The other is that he played in the NFL as recently as 2022, for the Tennessee Titans. I quite literally have NO memory of this.
As far as I can tell, he’s now truly out of the league, and I hope he’s gotten his life together.
Gordon, of course, started his career in Cleveland - which was part of a crazy Monday Night Football game this week, which featured the Complete Jameis Winston Experience - 4TD, 3INT (including two pick-sixes) and a postgame quote for the ages - I somehow find this to be one of the funnier quotes I’ve read in some time.
Oh, Jameis. I’m reasonably sure the Lord has a few other problems to solve.
Finally, I think just to put this down in writing, it’s worth talking about the final straw that got Matt Eberflus fired as Head Coach of the Chicago Bears. It was in response to what happened at the end of the game vs the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. In the first half of the game, the Lions thoroughly outclassed the Bears, who looked lost. Rookie QB Caleb Williams looked pretty bad, and it was embarassing. But the Bears ROARED out of the gate after halftime, and closed the score to 20-23, with the ball at their own 1-yard line. And Williams led the team down the field, getting them into field goal range. And then, he took a terrible sack on 2nd down, which left them in range for a 55+ yard field goal, and one time out.
What happened next is so bizarre for anyone who has watched football, it’s hard to truly break down, but here’s my best effort. Being a sack, the clock kept running. The important thing here is to ensure that at bare minimum, there’s a chance to kick a game tying field goal. But with 35 seconds or so AND A TIMEOUT, there’s plenty of time to try and get closer and give that field goal try a better chance of success.
The clock just kept ticking. Williams motions to his helmet a few times, as if trying to indicate there wasn’t a play coming in. Then, maybe because he didn’t like the call, Williams started calling an audible and changing the play. The clock keeps running. He doesn’t snap the ball until six seconds are left and at that point, he has to try and throw a “Hail Mary” touchdown pass, because there won’t be time to call a timeout once the play is over. The pass falls short, time expires and the Bears lose - with a timeout in their pocket and the kicker on the sideline.
Afterwards, folks were trying to decide who was to blame - and first, they came for Williams for not calling timeout. He basically said that was up to the coaches - and I agree with him. What they seem to agree upon was that by the time a play was called, there was less than 15 seconds left.
What took 20 seconds to call? Even if this was the coaches indecision, THEY HAD A TIMEOUT.
And then, when Williams started to change the play, they should have called a timeout.
Perhaps the most egregious thing here, however, was how Eberflus tried to defend this. (Bold and italics mine, naturally.)
Added Eberflus: "I like what we did there. Again, once it's under 12 [seconds] there, you're going to call timeout there, you don't have an option. … To me, I think we handled it the right way. I do believe you re-rack the play, get it in-bounds and then call timeout. That's why we held it and it didn't work out the way we wanted it to."
First of all, it’s worth reminding Eberflus that there was NO reason there should have been so little time left on the clock. Second, the play wasn’t snapped with 12 seconds, it happened six seconds later. I feel like there’s a non-significant chance that if ‘Flus had just fallen on the sword here and talked about what went wrong, he’d still have a job.
It was a truly embarassing end to his head coaching career, which I’m almost positive is what we saw happen on Thanksgiving. I’m a little surprised the Bears fired him midseason (something the franchise has never done before), and I’m fairly sure they’ll hire someone else who is quite bad at the job at hand, but Flus had to go. Just so, so embarassing.